Typical game from an Arnold coached team. Apart from a 10 minute patch early where we scored it has been boring, insipid, uninspiring, timid football.
Harry Kewell has summed it up perfectly. We have not even tried to score since the first goal. First thought is always pass backwards. You deserve all you get when you play that conservative rubbish. At least have a crack.
I thought Kewell and even then Bosnich were incredibly negative. Bosnich asking why they are getting worse, 2-1 4 years ago to 4-1 this year. This Aussie team is weak IMO, there are some kids coming through but the quality at this moment is not good, I was expecting them to lose by 3-4 so its about par.
Sure I agree the coaching and tactics is poor, but when you know you are much weaker than the opposition, the focus is on containing them rather than being expressive as the likelihood is you will be scored more heavily against. I think the tactics were to limit the loss in this game, in case goal difference comes into play for the 2nd placed team later in the group stages, hence why there was very little attacking intent. Would people have been happier if they had tried to attack and left glaring holes in defence? Leckie for example, was never going to be given too much licence going forward as Mbappe was always going to be way too good for Atkinson so they needed to drop the winger back to try and protect the full back position and limit the damage of Mbappe.
Bosnich asked at the end what Australia need to do to stop the gap widening between the best players. They firstly need to strengthen the A League to keep quality Aussie players here for longer and avoid the sort of sale that Kuol has just gone through where very little money comes back into the league from the sale. When 20 of your 26 players are from the A League, that should be obvious to Bosnich why they can't suddenly compete with a well drilled outfit like the French and the quality of players they have. The french aren't as arrogant as the Argies and particularly with the Argies losing earlier in the day, that didn't help the Aussies, as the French would have ensured they wouldn't become complacent in this game.